Baig: Z10 is a truly modern BlackBerry

Jan. 30, 2013
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The new BlackBerry Z10. / Robert Deutsch USA TODAY

by USA TODAY

by USA TODAY

NEW YORK - With all that is riding on today's global launch of BlackBerry 10, the folks at BlackBerry (formerly Research In Motion) couldn't afford to mess up. The BlackBerry Z10 - the first device to run the company's new operating system - not only had to make a stellar first impression, but it had to be markedly superior compared with the rival smartphones that put Canada's premier tech company in such a precarious market position. Either way, would it be too late?

The buying public will ultimately supply the answer. My own verdict after testing the Z10 for nearly a week is that it's very much good enough to keep BlackBerry in the game, but is still not very likely to help the company supplant the iPhone 5 or the Android-based Samsung Galaxy S III, or help the company recapture its past glory.

I do like the Z10 and BlackBerry 10, however, even with some flaws. The phone feels like the modern-day BlackBerry that seems to have eluded the company, especially as far sexier handsets emerged from Apple, Samsung and others. It's got a fresh touch keyboard that gets smarter as you go along and an inviting user interface built around simple touch gestures. Video chat is built into the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service. You come to appreciate BlackBerry Hub, a centralized repository for e-mail, text, social updates and more, and never more than a gesture away, even if you're in the middle of watching a video. It even has a decent supply of apps for a newly minted mobile operating system.

The new phone is a sturdily built black handset with a rubberized back that is comfortable to grip. (There's also a white version exclusive to Verizon Wireless.) A 4.2-inch LCD high-resolution display is generally easy on the eyes but loses a side-by-side comparison against the Retina display on the iPhone 5. A video from ESPN.com that perfectly reproduced on the iPhone was squished down and fuzzier on the BlackBerry. It has 2GB of RAM, 16GB of flash memory, and a microSD card slot hidden beneath the removable back lid for upping the memory by up to 32GB.

Verizon announced it will sell the Z10 for $199.99 with a two-year contract. AT&T and T-Mobile will also be selling the device, but haven't confirmed pricing. Sprint is passing for now. In the U.S. phones are expected to become available from most carriers in March.

BlackBerrys have always provided the kind of security likely to cheer the people who police tech policy at your company. So it goes here. And I would expect the handset to mostly appeal to the legions of BlackBerry fans that, judging by the pre-launch interest, are still out there, despite declining market numbers. At least those devotees who are willing to transition to an all-multitouch environment, and ditch the kind of physical keyboard which has been a longtime BlackBerry strength.

A thoughtful touch keyboard

BlackBerry put a lot of thought into its touch-screen keyboard. Like keyboards on other mobile phones, it tries to predict what you're going to type next. For example, if you often hit the letter "B" when you meant instead to hit the space bar, the keyboard will learn to fix that mistake in short order, the company says. The keyboard also serves up "predicted words" based on whatever you type. These words appear in tiny type over the next letter it anticipates you may strike. When I typed the word "emerging" in a text message, the keyboard correctly guessed the next word I wanted to type was "markets," even before I struck the "m." If you see the word you had in mind, you literally flick it up and it lands in place. The predicted words are awfully tiny though - I had to put on glasses to view them, or at least make sure I was right on top of the screen.

Meanwhile, you will find a number of handy keyboard tricks and shortcuts. You can delete an entire word, for instance, by rapidly swiping the delete key to the left.

Of course, some die-hards will want to wait for the BlackBerry Q10, a BlackBerry 10 device with a physical keyboard that is expected to become available in April. BlackBerry has not yet supplied review units. Sprint has announced that it will be selling the Q10.

Those gravitating to the Z10 must also master a new series of gestures called "peek" and "flow." I got the hang of these pretty quickly and came to like them. In the absence of a physical home button, for example, you swipe up from the bottom of the bezel to wake up a sleeping phone. You can swipe left and right to see icons for all your apps, and to see which apps are running at any one time - the handset is a whiz at multitasking. To quickly peek at the BlackBerry Hub from any screen, you swipe up and then to the right.

Inside BlackBerry Hub you can view your e-mail accounts, made and missed calls, texts, Twitter, BlackBerry Messenger messages, Facebook notifications, scheduled meetings and more. You can also view accounts individually. A blinking notification LED at the upper-right corner of the device clues you in that there's something new in there to check out.

The BlackBerry 10 browser is smooth and fast. And it supports Adobe Flash, though Flash is not turned on by default, and is a standard on mobile phones that is losing way to HTML5.

Still, I encountered deficiencies. The battery pooped out in the middle of a recent afternoon, way sooner than I would have wanted. The company says the battery life will improve with full carrier support. The good news is that the battery is removable, so you can always carry around a spare.

70,000 apps: What's there now

Meanwhile, not all of the apps I tried behaved properly leading up to the launch, which the company warned me about. BlackBerry says there'll be about 70,000 apps in the BlackBerry App World at launch, a very respectable number for a completely reinvented operating system, but a sum that still pales next to the iPhone or Android. BlackBerry says it will have all the third-party apps that most people want. A roster on my device includes Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Dropbox, Box, Angry Birds Star Wars, Flixster, Slacker Radio and yes, USA TODAY. Befitting RIM's roots, an app for Hockey Night In Canada was also on board. Skype and Rdio are said to be coming soon. But other prominent apps are among the missing at the moment, including Netflix, Instagram, Spotify and Pandora - though a BlackBerry 10 app called Apollo can deliver your customized Pandora stations.

BlackBerry also says it will have a robust catalog of movies and TV shows (through Rovi) and more than 22 million songs from major and independent labels (and supplied through 7digital). Alas, the very first TV show that I searched for, Downton Abbey, was not available in the store when I checked. You also can't preview TV shows you might consider downloading from the device, though you can preview movies.

BlackBerry very much has its bread-and-butter business customers in its sights. As with earlier BlackBerrys, it comes preinstalled with the Documents To Go app that lets you create, view and edit Microsoft Word and Excel files, view and edit PowerPoint files, and view Adobe PDF files.

Enterprise customers can exploit a feature called BlackBerry Balance in which the technical administrators in your company can arrange to segregate your personal data from your work data.

You can find and remotely lock a missing or stolen phone through the free BlackBerry Protect service.

And you can now initiate a voice and video chat through the BlackBerry Messenger business messaging service. With a decent Internet connection, the video quality of the chats I exchanged with a company executive was excellent. Even better, one of the participants in a video chat can share his or her screen with the other, a boon for co-workers who are collaborating on a project or a tech-support person who is trying to demonstrate how something is done. Incidentally, I was able to add BBM contacts by tapping my phone against another BlackBerry 10 device, all accomplished through NFC (Near Field Communication) technology.

A camera focus trick: Time Shift

But BlackBerry 10 isn't all work and no play. The Z10 has an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. The rear shooter can capture 1080p high-definition video, the front 720p.

I had fun putting together a polished little movie of my son's birthday party using a BlackBerry app called Story Maker. You choose the videos and/or still pictures to include in the project, add a soundtrack and titles, and apply one of a half-dozen "themes" (vintage, black and white, etc.).

BlackBerry is also reaching out to consumers with a clever, if not always practical, camera feature called Time Shift, which in theory ensures that each person in a group shot will pose properly. When you press the screen to shoot, the camera actually captures multiple images over a second or so. After shooting, you'll notice a box around a subject's face. Tap the face and a circle with a knob surrounds the face. As you drag the knob you can watch the facial expressions change, and tap the screen when the image of that mug is how you'd want it. The idea is to find a pose in which each person is smiling and has his eyes open.

Unfortunately, Time Shift doesn't do anything to improve focus, and taking the time to Time Shift means you can't quickly fire off more pictures. Another camera quibble: Unlike with some rival phones, you cannot capture a still image at the same time you are shooting video.

I didn't spend a lot of time testing BlackBerry Maps but the app's turn-by-turn directions didn't steer me wrong on my way to an appointment. Traffic information is supplied.

The Z10 also lets you incorporate voice commands to send texts, e-mails, BBM messages, call somebody, search the Web, schedule an appointment or make a note. But you won't mistake the voice commands on the BlackBerry for Siri on the iPhone (and that is meant as a compliment to Apple).

BlackBerry has produced an excellent cellphone based on what appears to be a solid foundation. I don't know if it will be enough to turn things around. But it's obvious BlackBerry is still breathing.